It's An Adventure, Right? Right?
by Shockz
Summary: An ill-advised bit of timeline alteration goes horribly wrong. One flash of light later, there are now only 3 billion people on Earth, cosmic abominations are rampaging through Japan, and Shinji Ikari's life really, REALLY sucks. Nice one, Mikuru.
1. Chapter 1: Welcome to Tokyo 3

**Chapter 1: Welcome to Tokyo-3**

August 2010

--NEURO-HYPERWAVE UPLINK ESTABLISHED--

"_Agent Omicron-552/B, your autoclassifiers and personality overlay are disabled. You may now think freely."_

_ "Thank you, Control. Your thought-signature sounds different; are you new?"_

_ "Yes. I'm Delta-84. Your previous controller, Delta-28 was...dishonorably discharged; I'm not at liberty to discuss the reason with you right now. I am at liberty to say that it was quite a scandal, though."_

_ "Delta-28's gone. Maybe the universe isn't trying to make me miserable after all. Commencing sensory data upload." _A pause, much longer than it should have been. _"Control?"_

_"Omicron-552/B, can you confirm the validity of the data? Specifically at points marked 22A, 46BF, and E8-1 through, um, 3C8A, and incidents crosslinked with those?"_

_ "Yes, Control, the data are valid. May I remind you that these are well within the observed and recorded capabilities of the subject?"_

_ "My God...Delta-28 knew about this and still kept you on observation?"_

_ "Yeah. He marked her as 'Timeline-Critical'. He made it part of the overlay, too, so I put up with _everything _thinking it was necessary_. _And then he "forgot" to disable the overlay for at least half my scheduled reports."_

_ "Er...well." _Control was silent for a moment.

_"If you've looked through my file, you'll have seen that I've put in several requests to redesignate the subject as a Shiva-class and carry out Containment Protocol 2. The fact that Central hasn't authorized it on its own gives me a sneaking suspicion that Delta-28 hid a lot of this information."_

_ "You know, I think you might be right. I'm putting the request through to Central with the data attached." _Another pause, much shorter this time; it was nice to have an AI for a boss. _"Central's cleared it. They're sending Omicron-552/A to execute CP2."_

_ "Only the best of the best for a mission like this. I wish I could do it myself. Er...my current self. You know what I mean."_

_ "That I do. You want to extract now or wait it out?"_

_ "I'll wait it out. I want to see how the secondary subject turns out without the Shiva-class ruining his life. I think he might be a good recruit; he's got the brains for it."_

_ "Understood. Your paradox shield is online and all green; 552/A is deploying to NT832/1994 in three...two...one...now."_

Agent Omicron-552/B closed her eyes through the brief wave of nausea, then opened them, expecting to see her view of Nishinomiya and Osaka Bay mostly unchanged.

What she saw instead brought the nausea right back.

"_Control, this is Omicron-552/B. We have an unanticipated, catastrophic butterfly-effect. Recommend you reverse previous mission immediately." _She waited a few seconds, trying to fight down the panic. There was no response. _"Control! Do you read me? CONTROL!"_

"They can't hear you, you know," said a familiar-sounding voice from behind her. When she turned to face its source, she knew immediately that she wouldn't be hearing from Control ever again.

* * *

FIVE YEARS LATER

"_Due to the current emergency, all lines are unavailable. Please try again later._"

"Huh. No good." Shinji Ikari hung up the pay phone and voiced his frustrations aloud to the abandoned street, trying to fill up the unearthly quiet. "I knew I shouldn't have come here..." He sighed, looked around yet again for a sign of his ride, then once again examined the slightly worn-out Polaroid photo in his hand. The photo depicted an attractive woman, in her late twenties or early thirties by Shinji's estimate, wearing a tank top and cutoff jeans. She was also leaning over, apparently for no other reason than to give the camera a good view of her cleavage. Someone—presumably the woman herself—had seen fit to add the words "LOOK HERE" and an arrow specifically pointing this out. She had also written "Shinji--I'm coming to pick you up, so wait for me, okay?", which was marginally more helpful.

"Well, I guess we won't be meeting here." He checked his cellphone again; there was still no signal, and it was already late in the afternoon. "I should probably get to a shelter—huh?"  
Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a girl standing in the middle of the street. For an instant, he thought it was the weird girl from the train station, but no, this girl was a bit taller and had hair that was more bluish than--

A series of earthshaking crashes gradually approaching him distracted him from the girl. They seemed to be coming from a nearby cross-street; whatever was making them sounded like it would come into the intersection at any moment.

And when it did: "What the...?"

It was a mecha; there was no disputing that. A _big _one, too; it was at least 40 meters tall, and roughly humanoid in shape. It was mostly dark green—that specific shade of dark green that might as well have been a bright neon sign saying THIS IS A MILITARY MACHINE. It had a bizarrely hunchbacked appearance despite its height; its angular upper back went significantly higher than its shoulders. There was no real head to speak of, though, merely a small hexagonal protrusion from its wide "neck", under which was a glowing screen. Its long arms and legs appeared to be segmented, as was its disproportionately narrow torso. Also, it talked.

"_Hey! Kid! Get your ass to a shelter!_" It did not turn to "look" at him, but continued walking towards...whatever it was walking towards.

"Um, uh, but I'm kind of waiting for someone to pick me up--"

If it, or whoever was piloting it, could hear him, it gave no indication. It quickly became irrelevant, however, due to the sound of several UNAF gunships flying out from behind a nearby foothill. Pursuing them was—dear God, what _was _that?

* * *

_"The unidentified object is approaching Tokyo-3."_

_ "We've got a visual. Putting it on the main screen..."_

Gasps and muttered profanities filled the NERV command center as the_...thing_ came into view. It was easily 50 meters high, and black as the night except for a number of bone-white structures: some kind of armor covering its shoulders, a birdlike mask where its face should've been, and what looked like an exposed ribcage covering a gleaming red orb.

In the center of the sudden commotion sat Commander Gendo Ikari, calm as the eye of a hurricane. His second-in-command, Kozo Fuyutsuki stood behind him, observing the scene with equal dispassion.

"It's been fifteen years, hasn't it?" The vice-commander spoke softly, believing—falsely—that nobody but his old friend would hear him.

"Yes. Well, now we're sure." The Commander reached up to adjust his glasses as he watched the monstrosity turn towards the camera, its empty eyes now seeming to look directly into his own.

"The Angels are here."

* * *

Shinji watched in awe as the gunships unleashed a hailstorm of firepower at the monster. Dozens of rockets streaked towards it, blooming into a chain of explosions that seemed powerful enough to obliterate just about anything. Yet when the dust cleared, the monster still stood, apparently unharmed. It seemed to consider one of the gunships for a moment, then raised its right arm. A crimson, glowing lance burst from its palm and obliterated the unlucky gunship.

Meanwhile, the mecha was carefully detaching something from its back. As far as Shinji could tell, it was some kind of gun. A very, very large gun, attached via a thick cable to the center of the mecha's back. The mecha lowered itself down to one knee and pointed the weapon at the monster.

Shinji quite suddenly realized that, given his relative proximity to the mecha, it might be a good idea to cover his ears.

And not a moment too soon; there was a dazzling flash of light and accompanying _CRACK_ as the mecha fired, sending a burst of _something_ directly into the monster's chest. Shinji tried to blink away the flash-blindness and process what he had just seen; it looked for all the world like the mecha had shot a lightning bolt, of all things. The monster staggered from the blast, but remained upright and visibly undamaged.

The lightning gun, or whatever it was, had accomplished something, however. It had gotten the creature's attention. It turned to face the mecha, considering it as it had the unlucky gunship.

Fire bloomed out from beneath the creature, illuminating the surrounding landscape into something Dante might have imagined. Impossibly, the gigantic being lifted off, jumping nearly a kilometer to face the mecha at close range. The mecha fired the lightning gun again while it was in midair, but the effect this time seemed to be even less—the monster did not seem fazed by it at all.

Shinji barely had time to process all this before he was knocked down by the impact of the monster landing not twenty meters away from him. The mecha's lightning gun flashed and cracked once again; as Shinji tried (belatedly and ineffectually) to simultaneously shield his eyes and cover his ears, he heard the distinct noise of screeching tires and the click of a car door opening through the ringing in his ears. He looked up to see a blue Renault sports coupe with the woman from the photo in the driver's seat.

"Sorry I kept you waiting," she chirped, an incongruously cheerful smile across her face. Shinji didn't even bother replying; he just jumped into the car. The woman didn't wait long either; as soon as the door was closed, she shifted into gear and blasted her way down the nearest cross street, putting as much distance between them and the impending battle of titans as possible.

* * *

_"This is JA22; the E-laser seems totally ineffective even at close range. Falling b—AUGH!" _The radio signal dissolved into static as the Angel's energy lance pierced JA22's "head". Every person in the NERV command center (well, every person without better-than-average knowledge of nuclear physics) held their breath for a moment, waiting to see if the mecha's internal microfusion reactor would turn the surrounding town into a radioactive wasteland. Thankfully (or obviously, again depending on one's physics knowledge), it did not; JA22 merely froze, than fell onto its back, destroying a few small buildings. The Angel then resumed its methodical destruction of everything shooting at it; it eliminated the rest of the gunships (save for the one providing the video feed to NERV, which had wisely retreated to a safe distance and stopped firing). Nothing fazed it; not Gatling guns, not tank shells, not artillery, not missile after missile after missile.

The highest-ranking officers in the Japan Strategic Self-Defense Force, the Japan Airborne Self Defense Forcem and the UN Global Defense Force each sat at a table in the command center, watching in horror as the Angel carved a path of destruction through hundreds of soldiers and millions of dollars' worth of equipment.

"Dammit!" The JSSDF general slammed his fist into the table, spilling a few drops from the coffee mug in front of him. "We're hitting it with everything we have and we aren't even touching it!" He stood and rounded on a lab-coated woman standing behind him, well off to the right of Ikari and Fuyutsuki. "And your little science project didn't even slow it down!"

The red-haired woman regarded the general coolly. "Jet Alone was designed to be the final word in _conventional _warfare, General Araki. What we are facing right now is clearly anything but conventional." Anyone who was watching Ikari and Fuyutsuki would have noticed the former raising an eyebrow at the woman's emphasis on 'conventional'. Had she overheard?

Araki opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the JASDF general. "Dr. Jansson has a point. We need to hit this thing with something bigger."

* * *

The purple-haired woman—whose name, Shinji had learned, was Misato Katsuragi—had gotten them out of the town and on the highway to Tokyo-3 in record time, largely as a consequence of her style of driving, which could charitably be described as "unbelievably reckless". Once they had reached what she thought was a safe distance, she stopped and decided to watch the rest of the battle by way of leaning out the passenger-side window and looking through a pair of binoculars. This position had the side effect of placing her ample chest inches away from Shinji's face—a situation he found uncomfortable but, he had to admit to himself, not entirely unfavorable. Not that he--

"Wait." Misato spoke. Had she seen something? Shinji squinted; he could just barely see a few gunships retreating from the monster. Were they out of ammo, or...?

"They're not...they're going to use one of the N² mines! GET DOWN!" Misato's shout was rather unnecessary, as she dove down on top of Shinji, as if trying to protect him from—what? His mind was still processing the last sentence she had spoken when the world went white.

* * *

The N2 line of explosives represented perhaps the greatest public relations achievement in the history of Japan: convincing the scared and justifiably nuke-shy masses that an explosive device with the destructive power of twenty-five thousand tons of TNT—more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, though far short of the yield of modern thermonuclear explosives like the one that had hit Tokyo—was a-okay, simply because it was _not nuclear_. Never mind that it was still a weapon of mass destruction by any definition of the term. Never mind that the only reason it did not produce a mushroom cloud was that it was specifically designed not to do so. Never mind that every physicist on Earth swore that it was impossible to create an explosion that powerful with anything _other_ than a nuke. There was no fungus-shaped smoke and no radioactive fallout, so no problems, right?

Those within its blast radius might disagree with the "no problems" part. Included among this unlucky number were Shinji Ikari, Major Misato Katsuragi, and Major Misato Katsuragi's very nice Renault Alpine coupe, which were all knocked off the road and flipped over several times by the blast wave.

* * *

"YES!" General Araki managed to show yet another shocking display of unprofessionalism, standing up and nearly knocking his chair over as the massive explosion obscured the Angel from view. He looked back and actually _smirked _at Ikari and Fuyutsuki. "Looks like we won't be needing _your_ science project either, Ikari."

Gendo Ikari did not speak; he merely continued to watch as the image on the main screen dissolved into static as the EMP from the blast knocked out the camera.  
There were several minutes of tense waiting as the various technicians scrambled to find a camera or sensor system that was still online. One of the UN generals leaned over to Araki and said, "That had to have destroyed it. Nothing could survive a blast like that at point blank range." It sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Araki.

The technicians chose that moment to finally get one of the sensor arrays back online. "_High-energy reading detected at the center of the blast crater!" _A fuzzy, black-and-white video feed started up again moments later, revealing the Angel standing at the center of the firestorm, clearly damaged but definitely alive and moving. It's strange, bird-like "face" appeared to have been partially torn away, revealing...another bony "face" beneath it.

The UN general slumped back in his seat. "No..."

"That was our last resort," Araki muttered.

Behind them, the two men who knew more about the mysterious being than anyone else in the room observed the being. No longer did they speak in whispers to each other, for now it was clear they would benefit the most from acting like they knew what was going on.

"It looks like it's regenerating itself," Fuyutsuki observed. "Just as expected."

"It wouldn't be much of an autonomous invasion weapon if it couldn't."

There was a flash of light from the Angel's eye sockets, and one of the technicians yelled out "Massive energy spike coming from the target!" Before she was done saying "massive", the camera and sensor arrays went dead once again.

"It also appears to be capable of upgrading itself at will," Kozo said.

"Including its intelligence, apparently. It will likely renew its assault momentarily."

Araki once again turned to face the two of them, helplessness apparent in his expression and voice. "Even after all this, Ikari, you think NERV's fancy toys can beat this thing?"

Gendo adjusted his glasses, a rare smile lighting up his face. "I know we can. It's what NERV was created for."

"Very well." Araki sighed. "If nobody objects, I'm putting you in command in this operation from here on out. Don't disappoint me."

"Yes, sir." Gendo turned to his desk and pushed a button on the built-in comm console. "This is Ikari. We have authorization. Prepare to activate Unit 01."

For the first time, a hint of confusion appeared on his second-in-command's face. "Unit 01? But...it's not even finished. The whole system is almost completely untested. And what about a pilot?"

"I have enough confidence in the preliminary tests to deploy it, and enough of the sync matrix is complete for the pilot to engage in short-range combat. As for the pilot..." Gendo's smile faded. "We have Rei. And if she fails...there's a spare on the way."

* * *

"Okay. One...two...three...PUSH!" With much straining and grunting, Shinji and Misato managed to flip the previously inverted car back onto its wheels. "Phew. Thanks for the help, Shinji."

"Uh, thank you too, Miss Katsuragi--"

"Just Misato is fine," she interrupted, taking off her sunglasses with a warm smile. "Glad to finally meet you, Shinji Ikari."

"Yeah." Shinji smiled back. _Wow, she's beautiful. Maybe coming here wasn't such a big mistake after all_.

After a few minutes of furious duct-taping, the battered and bruised Renault was on the road again, and Misato was talking with someone on her cell.

"Yeah, we're both fine. His safety is my top priority, after all. Are the car trains running?...Express B-22, routed to the A-28 entrance." Her cheerful expression abruptly sharpened. "_Again?_ Seriously? That's what, the third, fourth time this week! Fine, fine, get A-28 ready instead..._what do you mean A-28's broken down too? _Dammit. Yes, I know all about the maintenance budgets. A-29's not too far away; is that one working today? Good. We'll be there in about twenty minutes." She hung up and let out a long sigh, sinking alarmingly low into the driver's seat. After a few minutes of silence, which Shinji spent staring out the window at the rather beautiful view, she spoke up again. "So. Shinji. Is there anything you wanted to ask me?"

"N-no."

"Nothing? Not, 'why was I called here'? Not, 'what the hell was that thing'?"

Shinji studied the tops of his shoes intensely. "I figured there wouldn't be much of a point. All you'd do is tell me it's classified information."

Misato laughed. "Pretty sharp for a kid your age! You're right, there isn't a whole lot I can tell you right now. Pretty much all I can say is that the thing we just got away from is called an Angel, which most likely just raises more questions." As she spoke, Shinji noticed that she had turned into a tunnel, and had stopped in front of a very large door. Painted on the door were the words "NERV – God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world" along with half a fig leaf. "With any luck, though, your security clearance is about to get bumped up a few notches."  
Shinji examined the logo until the door retracted into the ceiling. "NERV?"

Misato drove forward through the door, stopping at a set of locks designed to hold the car's wheels in place—not unlike a car wash. "It's a special agency under the command of the UN. Your father works there. Do you know what he does?"

"All I've heard is that his work is 'essential for humanity's continued survival'. Are you...are you taking me to him?" Shinji spoke over an electronic voice announcing "_Train A-29 now departing for station G-35, with stops at G-30, G-31, G-32-1, G-32-2, G-33-1, G-33-2, and G-34." _

"Yes. Yes, I think so."

Shinji wasn't sure what to think of this. It had been so long ago...the only really clear memory he had of his father was him leaving. Did he really want to see him again?

Misato's voice interrupted his thoughts. "...ur ID card, right?"

"Oh! Yeah." Shinji dug through his bag, and pulled out a sheet of paper with a plastic card paperclipped to it. The only legible text on the paper was his name, and a scrawled message in his father's handwriting saying "COME HERE." It looked like there had been a fair bit of information on the page, but all of it except a number—001372--had been redacted with a black marker.

Misato examined the card. "Huh. Looks like your security clearance is already higher than I thought. Here." She pulled a big, thick book marked "NERV EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK" in English and Japanese out of the glove box. "Read this."

Shinji examined the cover for a few seconds. "So, I'm going to be working for my father?" Misato didn't respond. "Of course. He wouldn't have called me here if he didn't need me for something."

"I take it you don't get along with your dad?" Shinji didn't respond. "Heh. Neither do I."

At that moment, the rock walls surrounding the car train suddenly gave way to open air, giving the two of them a truly spectacular view of the largest underground cavern in the history of the Earth. Shinji's usual neutral expression gave way to complete awe as he gazed upon it. "Awesome! It's...it's a real Geofront!"

"Yep. This is where our secret base, NERV Central HQ, is located. She pointed at a pyramid-like structure in the center. "This is humanity's ultimate fortress, and the key to rebuilding our planet." Misato followed his gaze to the the inverted skyscrapers at the roof of the cavern; the sight still took her breath away even now.

The car train chose that moment to suddenly jerk to a stop, leaving them stuck hundreds of meters above the cavern floor.

"Of course," Misato said, "like everything else we've built, it doesn't always work quite right."

* * *

A/N: So here we are with version 3 of "It's An Adventure, Right?...Right?". It's bigger. It's better. It is _arguably_ more badass. And, most importantly, it's not going to try and run on pure awesomeness to compensate for a poor plot.

Change #1: It's starting from the beginning, rather than the battle with Bardiel. This setup honestly just gives me more _room_ to fit in all the plot points and character development I want.

Change #2: Less Haruhi. The main complaint I received was that Haruhi was taking attention away from the other characters. In this one, Haruhi will be, at most, a _minor _character, at least until EVA-04 goes online. After that, who knows?

Change #3: More SOS Brigade. Mikuru, Yuki, and Itsuki will all have major parts in the storyline, as you can probably tell.

I honestly wanted to make this chapter longer, maybe covering the first two episodes of the series, but there's a certain point at which a voice in my head just goes POST IT POST IT POST IT and I can't ignore it any more.

All reviews welcomed, positive or negative. C2A2: Constructive Criticism Always Appreciated!


	2. Chapter 1b: NERV

**Chapter 1b: NERV**

It took nearly twenty minutes for the car train to be brought back online, leaving Shinji to page through the "Welcome to NERV" book. It was quite amazing how it managed to go into such detail about meaningless procedures while saying absolutely nothing about what the agency actually did. By the time the train finally started moving again, Shinji was more confused than ever.

Even when they finally arrived at the pyramid-shaped building that was NERV's main headquarters—or "Central Dogma", which both Misato and the handbook occasionally called it—Misato and Shinji's journey was far from over, as they had to navigate a seemingly endless series of corridors and walkways marked only with numbers, while armed only with a less-than-adequate map and Misato's alleged navigational skills.

"You know," Misato said after some time, "these walkways were originally supposed to be moving. Like the ones they have at airports?"

"What happened?"Shinji asked, doing his very best to sound interested.

"The budget cuts. Just like with everything else." She glanced down at her map again. "Crap...are we going the right way? Wait, yeah, I think we are," she said, in a tone that did not inspire much confidence.

Especially since Shinji had just noticed that one of the numerical markers was quite familiar. "We passed this spot just a little while ago," he replied evenly.

Misato sighed again. "Sorry. I'm just not used to this place yet. Don't worry about it; we'll figure it out eventually."

After a few more minutes of wandering around, Misato finally managed to match their location to a spot on the map, and headed straight for a nearby elevator.

As they waited for the elevator to arrive, Shinji finally brought up something that had been bothering him. "Where is everyone? I mean, a lot of people work for NERV, don't they? But we haven't seen a single person."

"Well, I imagine just about everyone is in or around the command center right now. Either that, or..." Misato let out a brief, obviously fake cough. "Plus, there aren't as many people working for NERV as there used to be."

"The budget cuts, right?"

"You catch on quick, Shinji."

The elevator _pinged_, and Misato confidently began to step into it, only to stop just a few inches short of colliding with the blond-haired, lab-coated woman already occupying it.

The other woman raised an eyebrow as she stepped out of the elevator, not bothering to let Misato get out of the way. "So Major Katsuragi has finally decided to grace us with her presence. You know you were supposed to be here an hour ago?"

"Heh. Sorry, Rits!" Misato affected the same cheerfully apologetic chirp that she had used upon first meeting Shinji.

The eyebrow did not fall as "Rits" turned to face Shinji. "So this is the boy? The Second Child?"

"Yes. Shinji, this is my friend Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, NERV's chief scientist and head of most of NERV's special projects. Rits, this is Shinji Ikari."

"I'm glad to meet you, Shinji," Dr. Akagi said, finally letting the hint of a smile creep onto her face.

"Oh. Uh, right, glad to meet you." Shinji couldn't help but notice the rather deep shadows under her eyes, undisguised as they were by cosmetics. She looked as if she hadn't slept in a week.

Misato smiled. "I think you'll like him. He's about as talkative as his father."

Ritsuko's own smile widened. "So I see." She checked her watch. "Speaking of the commander, he'll probably be waiting for us by now. This way, Shinji."

The scientist led Shinji and Misato through the maze of Central Dogma, finally taking them to a large, open-air freight elevator. As she pressed the activation button, sending them diagonally upward through a room so vast that the floor and ceiling were shrouded in darkness.

As the elevator made its slow way upwards, a PA system clicked on and sent its message echoing throughout the vast room. "_All units, assume level 1 battle stations. Prepare for secondary ground interception. Repeat, assume level 1 battle stations..."_

Misato spoke up. "So, here we go. How's Unit 01?"

Ritsuko sighed. "We brought it out of refrigeration not long after you left. But...even the basic B-type equipment is incomplete, and we still haven't run the full suite of tests on the core systems."

"How incomplete are we talking?"

"The targeting systems are still completely nonfunctional; so combat will be limited to melee. And even if we did have targeting, we only have a couple of guns up and running. At least the reactors are working smoothly; it would've been a nightmare if we'd had to use the umbilical." She sighed again. "And the sync matrix itself...it _should _work, especially with the Marduk precautions, but we've never tested it in anything but simulations."

"It's still our only chance. We have to take it."

Ritsuko buried her forehead in her palm and shook her head. "I know, it's just...it could've been ready. It could've been perfect; we could've even had the prototype running and tested and ready to serve as backup. We just needed more time. And people. And money, always more money. God _damn_ Jet Alone."

The elevator abruptly came to a stop. Shinji saw that they were now at the edge of a truly massive tank of some kind of liquid. There was a small hovercraft docked by the platform they were standing on; Ritsuko boarded it, followed by Misato, who motioned to Shinji to do the same.

The hovercraft took them across the tank (easily large enough for Shinji to think of it as a lake), to a huge wall with the letters "EVA-01" painted above a massive hangar door. (Shinji was beginning to notice that _everything _seemed to be on a huge scale when it came to NERV. No wonder they had budget problems.) Wedged between two sections of the wall was a gigantic, metallic...thing?

Ritsuko punched a few numbers into a keypad by the door, then put her eye up to a retinal scanner. The door slowly creaked open to reveal only pitch blackness behind, then creaked closed behind them once they entered, leaving them in the dark for a tense few seconds.

Then the lights clicked on.

"Whoa!" Shinji took an involuntary step back. He was staring into a metallic face at least the size of a bus. It was a dull silver, the color of unpainted steel, with glowing yellow eyes. A single horn rose from its forehead, reminding him of nothing so much as a mythological _oni_, come to devour unsuspecting humans. The head sat atop a torso that looked as wide as a city block. The rest of the thing was submerged beneath the surface of the lake, preventing Shinji from getting a clear look at it. "Is that...is that a _giant robot_?"

Ritsuko's response sounded very, _very_ rehearsed, though not without a hint of pride. "This is humanity's ultimate weapon: EVA-01, the first model of the Evangelion synthetic organism slash humanoid weapons platform."

_I'll take that as a yes_. "Is this what my father's been working on?"

"_Indeed_," replied a very familiar voice from overhead. Shinji looked up to its source, and for the first time noticed an enclosed observation deck overlooking the rest of the chamber. Standing in the center of the chamber was none other than Gendo Ikari.

Shinji's father.

"...Father?" He hadn't changed much since Shinji had last seen him, three years ago.

"_It's been a while, Shinji_." A smile was across his face, a smile that bore more resemblance to that of a child with a new toy than anything that could be described as parental or affectionate. _"Dr. Akagi. Is Unit 01 ready for launch?"_

"As ready as it's going to get without six more months and thirty billion yen."

"_Good._" He pressed a button on the intercom panel in front of him. "_Rei. It's time_."

* * *

Despite his amazement at seeing EVA-01 (and up close, no less!), one question hovered at the back of Shinji's mind. Why was he brought here? What was the point of taking a 14-year-old boy into one of the most secure locations on Earth, and showing him this massive, top-secret...science project? Was it some bizarre apology on his father's part, trying to make up for his absence by saying _"See, look what I made!"_?

Misato had taken him up and around to the observation room he had just seen his father in, "for his safety". (Naturally, the elder Ikari was gone by the time they entered.) As she prepared to return to the command center, he asked her that nagging question.

Misato frowned. "Can't tell you that, Shinji. Not yet, anyway." She looked down and mumbled "...hopefully, not ever," as she left.

There was now quite a bit more activity around the Evangelion. Shinji noticed that it seemed to be focused on one person. More surprisingly, it was a person he recognized, though barely: the girl he had glimpsed immediately before the...Angel appeared. Of course, it would be difficult _not_ to recognize her—albino-white skin, whitish-blue hair, red eyes...all on a face that seemed oddly familiar...

"So that's the girl they're getting to pilot the Evangelion. Heard she was just a kid, but...my God, she's so _young_."

Shinji nearly jumped at the unexpected voice from behind his shoulder. He quickly turned to face it. What he saw was a auburn-haired, lab-coated, and strikingly beautiful woman whose age he...couldn't quite place. She must have picked up on his anxiety, because she smiled and said, "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. You're...you're Ikari's kid, right?"

"Yes. I'm Shinji Ikari."

"Nice to meet you, Shinji. I'm Mikaela Jansson. _Doctor_ Mikaela Jansson, if you want me to start bragging." Her Japanese was flawless, but had a trace of a foreign accent Shinji couldn't place.

"Are you part of the, uh, Evangelion team?"

She laughed lightly. "No. As a matter of fact, if every researcher at NERV had a list of people they hated most in the world, I'd probably make the top ten in most of them. I'm the leader of the Jet Alone project. You've heard of Jet Alone, right?"

"The...other big mecha, right?"

"That's the one. The one that got completely wrecked by whatever it is we're fighting. So what're you doing here? Is it Bring Your Kid To Work Day, or something?"

"I don't know. My father sent me a NERV ID and a note saying "Come", and nobody seems to want to tell me why."

"Classified information, eh? That brings back memories...Oh, look, they're loading her up now."

Shinji watched as the blue-haired girl entered a large, pill-shaped...thing, with one of the technicians closing the hatch behind her.

"So that'd be the 'entry plug' thing they were talking about..." Dr. Jansson muttered to herself. Without warning, the level of the...fluid Unit 01 was submerged in began dropping, draining away to reveal the true size of the mecha (and it was huge indeed; taller than even Jet Alone). A mechanical arm lifted up and positioned the 'entry plug' above the Evangelion's neck. The mecha's head slid forward, revealing a hole which fit the plug perfectly. The arm gave a sudden twist, screwing the plug deep into the mecha's body. The neck slid back into place, leaving the plug—and the pilot—encased within the mecha's body. "Hmm...there's obviously some kind of reason why they just can't use a regular cockpit...I really don't know how they expect this thing to fight this, this Angel or whatever it is when JA went down so fast."

Shinji had to agree; what could a simple (albeit impressive) giant mecha do against a creature that could shrug off an N2 blast?

The various technicians had now cleared the bridge around the Eva's torso; it looked like they were preparing for the final launch. Though Shinji could not hear the status updates being shouted around the command center, he nonetheless could tell that _something_ important was about to happen. He waited, almost feeling a little excited...

And waited. And waited. Nothing happened. After about a minute of silence, the bridge was moved back into place, the entry plug removed from Unit 01, and Shinji was treated with the sight of a very large number of NERV technicians and researchers completely losing it. He couldn't tell what exactly they were shouting at each other from where he was, but eventually he noticed Dr. Akagi throwing up her hands and walking away from the whole mess. "What happened?" he asked Dr. Jansson.

"Couldn't say. I guess something didn't work," she responded. "Hope they have a plan C..."

Dr. Akagi entered the observation room soon after, and immediately threw a truly terrifying glare in the other lab-coated woman's direction. "Jansson. I don't know who gave you clearance to enter this facility in the first place, _especially_ this level, but you're going to have to leave now."

"Your boss, as a matter of fact. But all right; I wouldn't want to wear out my welcome." Her smile did not falter as she left the room.

"The commander? Why would he...never mind." Ritsuko turned to face Shinji as the door closed. "Shinji. Rei, our primary pilot, has failed to synchronize with the Evangelion. We need you to pilot Unit 01 instead."

"...What?"

"We. Need you. To pilot. The Eva."

"...Why _me_?"

"There are many, many reasons 'why you', but virtually all of them are above either your intelligence level or your security clearance. Suffice it to say that you are the only one that _can_ pilot it. Follow me."

Shinji found himself obeying, despite his continued protests. "So...this is why my father called me here? Just because he needed a pilot?"

"I don't know, and honestly I couldn't care less about your dysfunctional family life at the moment." They were now back on the umbilical bridge, and were facing the open-hatched entry plug. "Get in."

"But...no, I can't just...I'm not trained..." Shinji sputtered, immediately before a massive shockwave shook the entire building, nearly knocking him over.

"Damn it, it's found us...Shinji Ikari, let me make this as clear as possible. If you do not get into that entry plug _right now_, everyone in Tokyo-3, the Geofront, and possibly all of Japan is going to die. Do you want that on your conscience?"

"I...I..."

"No, you don't. Now GO!" She shoved him—actually _shoved_ him—into the entry plug, and shut the hatch behind him.

Immediately, a tinny voice spoke up. "_Entry plug sealed. Shinji, can you hear me?_"

"Y-yes." Despite his anger at being pushed around, he retroactively decided that no, he _didn't_ want thousands of deaths on his conscience. He'd go along with this insanity, at least until he had the chance to get some answers.

"_Good. I'm Lieutenant Maya Ibuki; my job is to guide you through the startup sequence and make sure you don't die horribly as soon as we launch the Eva. Now, sit in the pilot's chair._"Shinji did so. The seat currently had its back directly downwards, leaving him feeling a bit like an astronaut. "_There should be a headset on your left; put it on so that the hooks are behind your ears._"

There was indeed a headset. It had no speakers, oddly enough; just two white clip-like objects attached to the top. A wire led from it to behind his seat. "Okay."

_"Good. We're going to load the plug into the Eva now; I suggest you hold on tight._"Shinji felt the plug rotate so that he was now vertical again, then jerk up, forward, and down again (with a bit of a twist).

_"Entry plug loaded, primary systems connected._ _Dispensing LCL. Now, Shinji, don't freak out--_" He was, in fact, freaking out, due to the fact that the entry plug was rapidly filling up with an unidentifiable orange liquid and _oh God it's above my mouth my nose I'm going to drown_ "--_LCL is oxygenated. You can breathe it like air."_

After a few seconds of panicked hesitation, Shinji, very tentatively, and against all common sense, attempted to _breathe_ in the strange liquid. To his very great surprise, his lungs did not complain. Too much. "Ugh...tastes like blood...I think I'm gonna be sick."

_"Man up, kid. Don't start puking on me now._" A different voice this time, and one he recognized—it was Captain Katsuragi, though with a authoritative, businesslike tone he wouldn't have believed she was capable of.

"Right..." He sighed, and was somewhat surprised to realize he _could_ sigh.

He felt rather than heard a deep hum from the heart of the Eva. _"Microfusion reactor online, power output within optimal range. A10 headset online; connecting secondary nervous system...Shinji, this will feel a little weird." _

Without any more warning than that, Shinji suddenly felt as if he was ripped out of his own body. No, not ripped, because 'ripped' implied that the process was painful, which it wasn't. Just...extraordinarily _weird_, as Lt. Ibuki had said. His eyes weren't seeing the inside of the plug, they were seeing the _outside_, and everything looked so _small_...He blinked, and felt his eyes close, but his vision did not flicker as he'd have expected it to. He tried squeezing his eyes shut instead, and this time, after a split-second delay, the outside view flicked off, then back on when he opened them again. He tried moving his hand experimentally..._and he saw the Evangelion's hand move_.

"Shinji, you still with us?" The formerly tinny voice was now as clear as if Lt. Ibuki was standing right next to him.

"Yeah...wow..." The anger and apprehension he had been feeling were just melting away. He was in control of a _giant mecha_. He was _in __control_. "This is NKRNT, isn't it? That mind-reading thing I saw on TV."

Lt. Ibuki laughed. "More or less, but make sure you don't let Ritsuko-senpai hear you say that."

"Hear what?" A voice Shinji recognized as Dr. Akagi's came in from a distance.

"Uh, nothing, senpai! Sync ratio is 62% and holding. Loading up the heads-up display interface..." A single line of text appeared in front of Shinji's face: _EMNUL Online._ It disappeared, replaced by more streams of text flying through Shinji's field of vision faster than he could read. Suddenly there was a bewildering array of information floating in front of his face: a compass, a damage/status display, what looked like an ammo counter (though with an incomprehensible error message instead of anything useful), power output, overhead map...

A box opened up in the lower left corner of his vision, marked "LT M IBUKI". It was black for a second, then switched to a video link showing a young woman with short brown hair in a NERV uniform, presumably the lieutenant. "EMNUL loading complete. Harmonics normal, no disturbances detected." She turned to face someone behind her. "Everything's running perfectly." She sounded surprised. Very surprised, in fact. Shinji felt the apprehension coming back.

The window expanded to show the people Maya was speaking to: Misato and Ritsuko, the latter of whom nodded. "It actually works. Who'd have thought?"

Misato chimed in. "Then we can do this. All right. EVA-01 and all support personnel, _prepare for launch!_"

* * *

Author's Note: Three months into the third version of this story, to say nothing of the first two versions (started more than a _year_ ago) and I've _almost_ launched EVA-01. That's got to be some kind of record for unproductivity. Still, the idea refuses to leave my head, and so I will keep on grinding it out, one sentence a day if necessary, until it is _finished_. Reviews always appreciated.


	3. Chapter 2: Alive

**Chapter 2: Alive**

At first there was only pain. Lots of pain. Not particularly intense pain, but it was _everywhere_. His arms hurt, his legs hurt, his chest hurt, his back hurt, and his head really, really hurt.

Then he cracked his eyes open, and _they_ hurt too. Not to mention he couldn't see much. Just white. Now there was white and pain. Although considering the spike in his headache, he was prepared to define "white" as a subset of "pain".

Where was he, anyway? He tried to lift his head up a little, and—unsurprisingly--that hurt as well. Still, he forced his eyes to stay open, and gradually the room around him came into focus. He was in a hospital, that much was clear. The impression of there being nothing but white certainly wasn't all that inaccurate; the room was almost completely featureless save for the bed he was in and the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows that stretched across the wall to his left.

Okay, so he was in a hospital. Not a very busy one, judging by the size of the room that he alone occupied at the moment. How'd he get there? He closed his eyes and tried to remember...where had he been yesterday? The last thing he could think of was waiting. Waiting by a pay phone. The pay phone wasn't working, because...because..._Oh_.

He remembered. He remembered all of it.

* * *

_ "Prepare to launch!"_ With that, Shinji suddenly felt a rumbling from...all around him, actually. The bridge in front of Unit 01's neck disengaged and retracted, as did the massive walls that locked the mecha's arms in place. The Evangelion should've been free to move now, but Shinji still felt something in the way. If he had been old enough to drive a car, he might have compared it to trying to do so while the parking brake was still on.

Unit 01 began moving, though not of its own volition (or Shinji's); the platform under its feet was carrying it towards the outer wall of the Evangelion hangar.

* * *

Something occurred to Misato. "Lieutenant Ibuki, when was the last maintenance check on this lift?"

"Er, June 12..."

"Oh, no problem, then. Never mind."

"...2012, ma'am."

"Oh. Well, it _should_ still work, right?"

* * *

Shinji was confused. This was getting to be a fairly commonplace state of mind for him. At this particular moment, he was confused because Ritsuko had made such a huge deal out of getting him into the Evangelion entry plug as quickly as possible—and indeed, he could feel the occasional rumble that did _not_ sound like it was coming from NERV machinery—and yet he had been standing at the base of this wall for three minutes and counting. The last thing he had heard from Lt. Ibuki was "Engaging magnetic lift!...er...hang on a minute, Shinji." Then she closed the video link. He wanted to ask someone what was going on, but he had no idea how to activate the communications system on this thing--

A black window marked _NO CONNECTION_ opened up in the lower left corner of his vision, precisely where Lt. Ibuki had been minutes before. _Okay, that's interesting_..._I guess my thoughts activate it or something? Okay...I want to talk to Lt. Ibuki_. "Connecting...Connection Established" popped up in the box, followed by Maya's somewhat surprised-looking face.

"Oh! Shinji! Uh, we're still actually trying to get the magnetic lift working. We're not sure what the problem is...the tech team should be taking a look at it now..."

"_Has anyone tried whacking it with a wrench or something yet?_" Misato's voice came in from offscreen.

"_I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear something so unbelievably_ stupid _coming from your mouth, Katsuragi._" That would be Dr. Akagi.

"_Well, it's not like you've come up with any better ideas, is it?_"

"_I have; it's called, 'Let the people who do this for a living take a look at the machinery and diagnose the exact problem'!_"

"_We don't have _time _to 'diagnose' anything! The Angel is going to start blasting through the armor any second!_" As if to punctuate Misato's sentence, the whole base shook yet again.

Unbeknownst to Shinji, the latest shock caused a long-frayed wire to—at least temporarily—reconnect, closing a circuit that had until now stayed stubbornly open.

Beknownst to Shinji, that circuit belatedly triggered the magnetic lift.

"WhaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!" A question regarding the loud "sizzle-BANG" he had just heard turned into a yell (one might almost say _scream_) of raw terror as the astronaut comparison that had occurred to Shinji earlier came back to his mind with a vengeance.

The video link to Lt. Ibuki remained open through the whole ordeal, of course. "Shinji? What's—oh! The lift's working now! Launch successful!"

"_See? All it needed was a good whack from something!_"

"_Well, even a stopped clock..._"

Thankfully, the lift began slowing down as it approached the surface, but the stop at the end of the lift rails was still uncomfortably sudden.

And then Shinji was staring down the Angel.

It was several blocks away and down on one knee at the moment, one hand pressed into the ground. The retractable energy spear Shinji had seen it use to destroy all those gunships was currently being slammed repeatedly into the street, like the world's largest and most ludicrous jackhammer. From this height—from the point of view of a 50-meter mecha—it actually looked more ridiculous than scary. _Okay. I can handle this thing._

The video link suddenly switched from Maya's face to Misato's. "Shinji, are you ready?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Release the final safety locks!"

Shinji felt Unit 01 disengage from the lift; at the same time, the odd, parking-brake-like inhibition to his/the Evangelion's motion disappeared. He was in full control now.

Ritsuko leaned in over Misato's shoulder on the video link. "Okay, it didn't fall down immediately, so the legs are in good shape...Try walking."

Shinji did so. First, one tentative step, then another. It was surprisingly natural, like it was his own legs that were doing the walking.

Ritsuko, apparently watching the whole process on another monitor, seemed fascinated. "My God...it's walking..._it's actually walking_."

She wasn't the only one. The Angel, previously only concerned with blasting through the street and the armored plates beneath, now seemed to notice Unit 01. Slowly, with a motion that was disturbingly humanlike for something so alien, it raised itself back onto both feet. Its empty eyes locked with Unit 01's. The red sphere in its chest glowed.

The confidence Shinji had had drained away, replaced in an instant by sheer terror. Mostly. He still felt a tiny bit of confidence, but...it was strange; it seemed to come from outside his mind, like an echo... "Um...Misato? How am I supposed to fight this thing?"

She responded in the absolute worst possible way he could imagine: opening her mouth to say something, closing it again, and turning to face Ritsuko. "Um...Rits? How _is_ he supposed to fight the Angel? You said the guns weren't ready yet. What about the prog knife?"

"Unfinished. The progressive blade isn't functional yet." Ritsuko paused for a moment. "It is still a perfectly good Eva-sized knife, however."

"Better than nothing. Shinji, deploy the progressive knife!"

"How do I—never mind." _Deploy progressive knife_, he thought. Right on cue, a slot underneath the Eva's left shoulder pylon clicked open, revealing the hilt of a knife. Shinji grabbed it and held it out in his best imitation of Solid Snake.

The Angel's mask twisted, the closest something without a clearly defined head could come to cocking it. It did not attack. In fact, it looked almost...confused. Shinji hesitated.

"What are you waiting for? Attack its core!" Misato's patience was clearly running thin.

"R-right." Rather clumsily, Shinji aimed a stab at the red sphere he assumed was the "core".

_Then_ the Angel attacked. Faster than Shinji could react, the Angel grabbed Unit 01's knife hand and bent back its wrist. He was already screaming in agony by the time it hit him that _he was feeling the Eva's pain_. The Angel took advantage of his surprise to reach out with another three-fingered hand and grab Unit 01's neck. Shinji's scream was suddenly cut off, owing to the fact that he was now having a great deal of difficulty breathing.

And then the Angel's arms inexplicably bulked up, and it started _pulling_. Agony beyond Shinji's wildest imagination flared through his whole body; it felt like he was being torn in half. On the radio, Misato was trying to be reassuring. "Stay calm, Shinji! That's not really your arm!"

_Easy for you to say_. Some part of Shinji's mind apparently still had the capacity to be sarcastic. He hung on to that piece; hoping it would keep him sane through this nightmare. _Or even alive. Sanity would be nice, too, but I'll settle for alive_.

Something _snapped_, and then the pain swallowed up even the sarcasm. Even the screaming. It hurt so much it was literally beyond his comprehension. If he had been able to think at all, he would have likely wondered how he was still conscious.

He was dimly aware of Misato and Ritsuko shouting something about some kind of field. Their words made no sense to him; nothing made much sense right now.

Then it got worse.

The red haze briefly retreated, enough for Shinji to see that the Angel had let go of his arm and was now holding him aloft by his head. A red circle in the center of its palm glowed, then retracted. _Oh, no, no no no no nonononoWHAM. _Very few people know what it feels like to be shot in the head, for obvious reasons, but Shinji now had a pretty good idea of it. Amazingly, the armor held up to the energy lance. _WHAM_. Or not; hairline cracks now appeared across his HUD. He had no idea whether the cracks were in Unit 01's eyes, or in the entry plug _WHAM_ itself; either way, at least it hurt less than the pulling. Slightly. He could at least _WHAM_ think through this. Though possibly not for much _WHAM-CRACK_--

* * *

Shinji frowned. The fight couldn't have ended there; he'd have been dead now. And he certainly didn't feel dead. So, obviously, his memory of the battle was missing a few pieces. But how could he have gotten back up and kept fighting after a hit like that? It didn't add up.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. "Hello? Are you awake, pilot Ikari?" He thought he recognized the voice, but he couldn't place it exactly.

"Yeah, come in."

The door opened, revealing none other than the blue-haired girl. She was wearing some kind of school uniform, the same one he remembered her wearing when he saw her before the Angel appeared. She was also holding a paperback book in her hand; the title read _Hyperion_. "Hello, pilot Ikari. I am Rei Ayanami. I am an Evangelion pilot, as you are," she said without further ado. Her voice was...flat. Not a monotone, but it might as well have been for all the emotion it showed.

"Oh, uh, hi. I'm Shinji, but...I guess you already know that. Nice to meet you."

"Indeed. Are you well?"

"Yeah, I guess. What happened to me? I can't seem to remember anything after the Angel grabbed me and did that thing with the...energy spear thing."

She did not comment on his vagueness. "I do not know the specifics; however, Evangelion Unit 01 was victorious over the Third Angel. You were unconscious when recovered from the entry plug, or so Misato says. I suggest you ask her for any further details."

"Uh, okay, I will. Thanks."

"You are welcome." She said nothing else after that, but remained where she was, still looking him straight in the eye. Neither of them did more than blink for a full minute.

"Um...Ayanami?"

"Yes, pilot Ikari?"

"Why are you staring at me?"

"I am told that it is considered rude to break eye contact during a conversation."

"But...we weren't having a conversation."

"Were we not? I was speaking to you, and you were responding. This constitutes a conversation, does it not?"

"Well, yeah, but then...nobody said anything, and that usually means a conversation is over. Except there's usually a 'goodbye' or a 'I need to go do something' involved."

"I had no reason to leave. Unless you wish me to."

"No! No, uh, it's fine if you want to stay here."

"Very well, then." And she once again reverted to that silent stare.

Shinji clearly would have to either bear the burden of keeping up the conversation, or ask her to leave. The choice was difficult, as his natural politeness was currently at war with his increasing unease at Rei's presence. Politeness claimed a bloody victory in the end. "So is that a good book?" He nodded at the novel Rei was holding.

"I do not know. I have not begun to read it yet. I suspect I will enjoy it, though; it was recommended to me by a friend."

"I see." _Well, so much for that topic_. There was another awkward pause before Shinji thought of something else to talk about. "So how'd you end up with NERV and this whole...mess?"

"I have been with NERV my whole life."

"What, even since you were a baby?"

"Yes."

Shinji turned that little tidbit over a few times in his head. "So do your parents work here or something?"

"I do not have parents. I was raised by the Commander."

It took a second before that sunk in. "Raised by my _father_?"

"Yes."

"...Oh." The blue-haired girl's words answered few questions and raised far more. If his father had had time to raise a child, why did he send Shinji to live with his teacher in the first place?

Anger flared up inside him, sudden and hot: anger at this girl who Gendo Ikari apparently saw as more important than his own son. He suppressed it; Rei could hardly be blamed for who chose to raise her.

Without warning, Rei pulled a mobile phone out of her pocket and examined the screen briefly. "I must leave now, pilot Ikari. It was...nice to meet you." She turned and walked out the door, in the same abrupt manner with which she had entered.

_Well. That was bizarre_. It occurred to Shinji that if Rei was the result of Gendo Ikari being a loving, attentive parent, perhaps he had been better off with his teacher.

* * *

Gendo Ikari was not particularly concerned with parenting right now, loving and attentive or otherwise. Right now he was more concerned with the deluded old men standing in between him and the money necessary to save humanity from annihilation.

"Our answer remains the same, Ikari," the Englishman said. "The Committee is, ahem, committed to different avenues of research now. The Evangelions are no more than war machines in the current Scenario, and we can ill afford to waste the money for the Unity Project on war machines. We do not deny that the Angels present a threat to the Project, but Sachiel has been beaten soundly. Unit 01 is clearly sufficient for the time being."

"Besides," the Russian added, "the original deception has proven effective. The Angels are attacking half a world away from what they seek."

_Not for long, _Gendo thought, keeping his expression carefully neutral. "Gentlemen, allow me to apologize. It seems that NERV's public relations department is altogether too effective; you seem to be swallowing the lie it concocted despite having viewed the unedited footage yourselves." He stood. "If I may remind you, Evangelion Unit 01 did _not_ 'soundly' defeat the Third Angel. In fact, the Angel incapacitated Unit 01's pilot, and very nearly killed Unit 01 itself." He did not mention that there was a very wide gulf between 'nearly' killing Unit 01 and _actually_ killing it. "It was only because the Evangelion took control away from the pilot and displayed heretofore unknown and unexpected regenerative capabilities that it was able to gain an advantage over the Angel, at which point the Angel self-destructed—causing critical damage to the Evangelion's armor, to say nothing of the city around it.

"Furthermore, the Angels are known to be able to adapt to new threats; on the off chance that we were able to repair Unit 01's armor to its previous level of functionality in time for the next attack, the Angel might well be able to anticipate and counter the assault, and annihilate Unit 01 effortlessly. And then where would we be? Where would all of humanity be?"

There was silence for a moment. Then the Chairman—Kiel—spoke.

"You've made your point, Ikari. What are you requesting?"

Gendo allowed himself a smile. "Readjustment of the NERV budget to 2010 levels. Inflation-adjusted, of course."

"No."

_As expected. _"It's still a miniscule fraction of the funding going into the Project."

Kiel let out a humorless chuckle. "You overestimate our resources. We can give you a quarter of that; about four times the current budget. Will that be sufficient for your crusade?"

_When combined with the money I'm now getting from eight countries' ministries and departments of defense? More than enough._ "It will do."

"Then I believe our business—at least, the part of it which concerns you—is concluded." The rest of the committee nodded, and their holographic images faded. Kiel remained, however. "Do not disappoint us, Ikari."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

The Chairman said nothing further before his image faded as well, leaving Gendo alone in the room.

* * *

Shinji lay in yet another unfamiliar bed (well, futon, technically), staring at yet another unfamiliar ceiling.

After he had convinced the doctor that, really, he felt fine, he had gotten his clothes back—freshly cleaned, even. Misato had picked him up shortly thereafter, and informed him that he would be living with her from now on.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. All of the eccentricities of Misato and her apartment—the beer, the mess, the instant food, even the _penguin_...were just distractions, crowded out by the two problems occupying his mind: Rei, and his memories.

Who was Rei? Why did she look like that, and why had his father chosen to raise her? How was she connected to the Evangelions? And why did she look and sound so familiar?

And, more pressingly (since it should've been a problem he was able to solve), what had happened when he was in Unit 01? How had he beaten the Angel?

Music hummed out of the headphones of his old MP3 player—the only gift he could remember ever getting from his father—as he frowned and tried to force himself to remember. He focused on the last thing he could recall—the horrible, steady _WHAM. WHAM. WHAM. _of the Angel's energy lance slamming into his—into the Eva's head. _WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

* * *

_

_WHAM-CRACK_. The Eva's armored eyes finally gave way, and the Angel's lance impaled Unit 01's braincase. For an instant, Shinji felt _nothingness_; then he was back in his own body as the words EMNUL SAFETY SHUTOFF blinked on the otherwise featureless entry plug wall in front of him. Only an echo of the pain he had been feeling now remained; it still hurt a _lot_, but it was bearable now and lessening every second.

He had no idea that the Eva's communications package was now mostly wrecked. He had no way of knowing that back in the NERV command center, Maya was frantically trying to contact him, or reactivate the Eva, or auto-eject the entry plug, or _anything_. All he knew was that, though he could not see outside, he could still feel the shuddering of the Earth as the Angel walked towards the fallen Evangelion to finish the job.

He knew he was about to die.

_no_

The SAFETY SHUTOFF light clicked off, and the hum of the microfusion reactor returned.

_it won't hurt you_

Shinji once again felt the bizarre sensation of being _pulled _out of his body, and then he was once again seeing out of the Eva's eyes (or eye, as the case was).

_i won't let it_

There was no fancy video-game HUD now. Just the sight of the approaching Angel, all tinted in a red haze. The pain returned as well, but it didn't seem to matter much right now.

Shinji Ikari was not normally an angry person. He considered himself to be quite reasonable, in fact. For him, anger was something to be controlled and suppressed, not unleashed.

Those thoughts of self-control and restraint were at the back of his mind now. Rather more important was his immediate desire to _rip the Angel's fucking heart out_.

He stood. The Angel stopped its slow approach towards him, giving him that questioning non-stare. It needed to _die_. _Now_. _Maim it. Tear its limbs off. Kill it kill it killkillkillkillkillkill_

Shinji opened his mouth. The restraints in place to keep him from doing exactly that were nothing, _nothing_ before his strength. He _ROARED_ at the Angel, then _pushed off _and _jumped_, _turning_ in midair as he _closed _the distance between them in an instant. He _landed_ on the Angel's chest and _hung on_, _gripping _its neck. It _threw_ him off, he _landed _on his feet and _charged _again.

He _collided _with a wall, an octagon of light between him and his prey. He knew what it was, and it did not bother him that he had no human words for it.

He had one, too. He _saw _the waves, the pulses that formed the barrier. And he knew how to _invert_ them, eroding it away. He looked at his hand. It was broken. He _fixed _it, then _wrapped _the inverse waves around his fingers, and _shoved_ them into the barrier.

He _heard _the Angel's scream, in frequencies no normal human could perceive. What he was doing now would be _violation_ of the highest order, if the being before him were anything more than prey. Its eyes flashed, trying to drive impossible energies into his body, his mind. But his own barrier held, and he continued _tearing_ apart the Angel's even as the energies blasted a cruciform shape in the buildings behind him.

Finally, she was through, and the Angel was vulnerable. She _tackled_ the Angel to the ground, and _tore_ open its mockery of a ribcage. Now its heart was vulnerable, and within it was the key, the fruit--

The Angel seemed to realize what she was about to do. It summoned its last burst of strength, and curledaround her as its heart began to glow.

The pain was brief and mild, even as the blast destroyed the city around her. She _sensed_ the nearest camera, and _approached _it, letting them see what they had unleashed.

Evangelion Unit 01 threw back her head and let out a triumphant, earthshaking _howl_, letting the ruined armor plate on her head slip off. Then she let herself _sleep_ once more. He was safe now.

Shinji was confused again. What...what had just happened? Was he still in the Evangelion? Something next to him was a mirror; for lack of a better idea, he turned his eyes to look into it.

What he saw was not metallic armor, but _flesh_. A head, with a ruined eye. And as he stared, that flesh bubbled up and formed a new eye, a horrible, green-tinted eye a meter across. It blinked, and stared back.

Shinji screamed as the blackness took him.

* * *

Shinji shivered. What...what was...it didn't make _sense_, none of it made any sense at all. It was wrong, all of it was _wrong_, it wasn't a mecha, it wasn't a robot, it was a _thing_, and it was thinking, and thinking _for him_, and it _knew who he was_.

He heard Misato coming in. "Shinji? I just...I just wanted to tell you. You did a good thing out there, and...you should be proud of yourself. So...thank you, and, uh, good night."

_Doesn't she understand? No_, he realized, _she doesn't understand_. _None of them understand_. _They might—Dr. Akagi might _know_ what it is, but she doesn't _understand.

He kept shivering as he drifted into sleep, and even the nightmares were better than the memories.

* * *

Somewhere else in Tokyo-3, a girl examined the footage she had recorded, alone in a supposedly-evacuated apartment building. And she grinned, her expression as bright as the yellow ribbon in her hair.

"Oh, this is _so_ going in the movie."


End file.
